Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), announces new legislation on January 7 that would regulate the sale and purchase of ammunition throughout California. Photo courtesy Julie Waters, Office of Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner.

In the wake of recent mass shootings—including one in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which took 26 lives, and one in late July at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, which left 12 dead—an East Bay politician is pushing for new state restrictions on the sale of ammunition in California. The move has received widespread support from city and school officials in cities like Oakland and Richmond, which struggle with high rates of violent crime.

Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, (D-Berkeley), who introduced AB 48 at a press conference on January 7, said there is an urgent need to require identification from purchasers of ammunition, as well as to create a state database that will track who buys and sells bullets so that law enforcement can access that information. According to the California Department of Justice, there are currently no state-level regulations on these matters, although some cities and counties have enacted local laws. In proposing her legislation, Skinner cited the need to stitch together that piecemeal network of regulations.

“It’s bullets that make a gun deadly, so if we have restrictions on the purchase of guns, then shouldn’t we also have them on guns?” Skinner said in a phone interview late Monday. “There are cities, like Sacramento, that do keep track of ammunition sales—but when only a few communities have these laws on the books, then someone can proverbially walk across the street and buy the bullets there.”